~~ Sky Dance ~~

©2000

A novel about the aftermath of the Vietnam war; its effect on one man and
the woman he is beginning to love after the death of his wife. Audrey has
her own problems. Her husband has left her for a younger woman,
though when she remembers the years of putdowns, of unthinking
mental cruelty, she comes to realise his departure was the
kindest act he’d performed towards her in thirty years.

The single-engine bi-plane plummeted earthward, acting for all the world as though it was dropping out of the sky. Audrey felt a moment of panic. What in the name of heaven was she doing here? Because if it wasn’t falling out of the sky, this small, suddenly fragile-seeming shell of steel and fabric that held her was doing a damned good imitation. She must have been insane to do this!

In the next moment, as the engine coughed, spluttered, then cut out altogether while they were still plummeting down—straight down—she knew she'd been insane to do this!

Then she remembered. Tiger Moths did that when you were looping-the loop. She'd read so, somewhere, a long, long time ago. Something to do with the fact that the fuel system was gravity fed, and at that point in the dive the petrol drained out of the carburettor, causing the engine to stall. Once they levelled out it would start up again. She was sure it would.

That bastard sitting behind her hadn't said anything though, had he? He was probably laughing his head off right now. At the very least, he'd have a grin a mile wide on that dangerously handsome face. Did he make a habit of not telling his passengers what to expect, or had she been singled out for special attention?

Still, she'd dared him to do his worst, hadn't she? When he’d grinned that cheeky grin of his at her and told her he was going to scare the pants off her? Strangely enough, Audrey hadn’t been offended. She’d even found herself flirting back a little. A very little—she was thirty years or more out of practice at that sort of thing. It was a long time since she’d seen herself mirrored in a man’s eyes as a desirable woman…certainly not in her husband’s eyes…but then she hadn’t really been looking.

She did have a husband, after all.

“Did have is right,” she whispered, her voice swallowed up by the roar of a wind that whipped the tears from her eyes before she had a chance to shed them. No! This was one moment the man she’d been married to for thirty years was not going to spoil for her! She’d shed enough tears over him through those empty years…

She leaned forward and looked over the side of the cockpit—at the mountains that rushed towards her with terrifying speed. It looked like her pilot really was trying to scare the pants off her…but, after all, she’d deliberately chosen to throw down the gauntlet. She had nobody to blame but herself if he'd decided to take up the challenge.

Trouble was, she couldn’t see what he was up to back there.

After what seemed an eternity of silence—though common-sense told her it couldn't have been more than five, maybe ten seconds at the most—he pulled them out of the dive. The engine caught and purred, then roared as he took off in a vertical climb, and though she’d known it would—once she'd remembered that all-important fact about Tiger Moths and aerobatics—Audrey felt a profound sense of relief wash over her.

Now, though, they were climbing—straight up—the force of the wind so strong she could hardly breathe. She had to make a grab for the goggles he'd made her put on along with that silly-looking Biggles-style helmet, because the wind was threatening to rip them right off her face.

Even the over-large leather jacket he'd zipped her into—much to her disgust—why couldn't she have kept her own trim, tailored, waist-length leather jacket on, she'd wondered at the time—seemed to be in danger of being peeled off her, in spite of coming down almost to her knees and being securely fastened.

Okay, so maybe he'd been right after all. Maybe she could see now why it wouldn’t have been a good idea to wear her own jacket. The way the wind was tearing at her clothes she might have been sitting here stark naked by now.

“All right, Audrey?”

His voice echoed through the rubber speaking tube that connected the passenger seat to the cockpit behind. She could barely hear him over the roar of the engine and had to shout her response.

“I'm fine, Joe. I love it!”

“Good. There's nothing I like better than being able to give a beautiful lady what she wants. Okay, now, over we go.”

Even as he said the words, they reached the top of the climb and went into the loop. The whole world turned upside down, tilting crazily, her stomach dropped to somewhere around the bottom of her pelvis, and she had serious doubts about the wisdom of drinking a bottle of champagne on the beach that morning with her best friend, Jennifer...

* * *

“Champagne and strawberries for breakfast. How deliciously decadent!”

“Cold chicken too. I thought, what the hell, why not go the whole hog? We haven't got any men in our lives to spoil us at the moment, so why not spoil ourselves? After all, you only live once,” Jen replied, “so why not make it dangerously?

But I'm preaching to the converted here,” she added with a grin to match the wicked gleam in her eye. “I'm not the one who's going up in a Tiger Moth at ten o'clock. Not this little chickadee. I'll be standing safe and sound right here on the ground watching, and that's as far as I'm prepared to go. Though I will be with you in spirit.”

Her grin grew even wickeder. “I can't wait to tell everyone at work!”

She eyed the expression on Audrey's face with sudden suspicion. “You haven't chickened out, have you?”

* * *

No, she hadn't chickened out. And as for her present predicament, well, she'd asked for it, hadn't she? Insisted that she wanted to do a loop-the-loop. So she could hardly complain that her pilot was delivering exactly what she wanted.

When her stomach shifted back to approximately where it was supposed to be and she looked around her, Audrey suddenly knew why she'd wanted to do this so much.

In spite of the roar of the engine in her ears, in spite of the savageness of the wind, she felt a profound sense of peace—a oneness with the very heavens themselves. As the horizon tilted and span, she found herself one moment on her back looking upwards, the next with her head to the earth and her feet pointing skywards. Then, disconcertingly, face down for a brief instant before turning back to the right way up again—for a moment...

(End of excerpt)

First excerpt from Be Careful What You Wish For

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